Avatar; The Royal Firebender.

Hope

Zuko finds himself in a bit of an odd predicament, granted this was his own doing but he'd never imagine that people would actually be happy to see him. Surrounding him are dozens of people that are all waiting for the ferries to head to the city. Zuko sits on a bench in front of all these people, all of which he has given them at one point or another. Hope. Their desperate faces alight with smiles and kind words, all because of him. A sneaking realization that has been plaguing his mind in the past few months has now become his main focus. All this suffering, the displacement, the separation... death. All of it was started by His great grandfather and the foolish old man's dreams of an empire. It was continued by his grandfather and now his own father carries on this brutality. As he ponders this, he sees a young girl with a burn covered by a bandage over half of her face, just like him. Her black hair is burnt away on the left side, her uncovered green eye wet with tears from the constant pain. Seeing her, Zuko stands up and pulls his waterskin from his hip and those around him stand aside.

"I know it hurts little one." Zuko says as he crouches down to her height, he gently removes the bandage from over her eye, seeing the extent of the burns makes his heart ache. Her skin is raw, blistered and bleeding from the burns, the scar will be permanent just like his. "Can you open your eye on that side?" He asks but the girl shakes her head no and starts to cry.

"I... I c-can't see out of my eye." She whimpers but Zuko just shushes her before dragging his hand up in front of his water skin. With the gentle movement of his hand water flows from the bag and flies through the air. He pulls it over his hands and sits in front of her. "It's going to be okay." He says before warming the water slightly with his bending so as to not hurt her with the cold.

Those around him watch in awe as he lets the water run over the burn on the child's face. She tenses up slightly as she feels the water touch her face but the pain vanishes almost instantly when it begins to glow. The healing light from the water shines over them, drawing even more attention to him. The healing lasts only for a few moments, but its effects are rather potent. As he allows the water to soak into the wound he grabs her a small cloth to dry her face with. The scar will sadly stay, however the healing process has closed the wounds, and restored a lot of the damaged skin. It was still discolored and reddish much like his once was, however when the girl opens her eye she finds she can see again from it. Once he finishes healing her he's shocked as the young girl hugs him. Her tears from the pain turn to tears of happiness as she tells him, "Thank you." in her small voice.

She would be the first of many people he would heal with his bending, each and every one of them afflicted with burns. Some were worse than others but he heals them all the same spending a few hours healing those who will be entering the city. Seeing the kindness from The Good Firebender, the staff at the ferry docks provide Zuko with a large cauldron of clean water to use to heal the other refugees. As time goes on, and people are healed, Zuko can't help but feel prideful for what he's doing. Helping others, undoing their pain, every time he heals someone he feels like he's bringing himself honor and that his mother would be proud of the man he's become. As the line in front of him comes to an end, the last man in the line is someone he hasn't seen in months. He stands with his right sleeve pulled up and gnarled burns along his arm exposed. Standing before him with a piece of wheat in his teeth is Jet, with an injury likely from fighting firebenders on the way here.

"Think you could help me with my burns too?" Jet asks, half expecting Zuko to hesitate but he's mildly surprised when Zuko bends the last of the water then applies it to the burns. Jet takes a seat in front of Zuko allowing him to tend to his wounds. "It's been a while." He says, causing Zuko to nod.

"If we're going to talk, then call me Lee." Zuko says as he focuses on healing Jet's burned arm. "Why are you heading to Ba Sing Sei? Last time I saw you, your freedom fighters had disbanded." Jet winces slightly as Zuko shifts to a different part of his arm.